"Genius is not replicable. Inspiration, though, is contagious, and multiform — and even just to see, close up, power and aggression made vulnerable to beauty is to feel inspired and (in a fleeting, mortal way) reconciled."
--David Foster Wallace, () "Roger Federer as Religious Experience"

They're a work in progress. Anything is an improvement over errors/fielding percentage.

Not necessarily. At least with errors and fielding percentage, fans know they don't attempt to tell you much. If they don't, they are corrected with little debate. The idea that statisticians are contriving stats so they can quantify the unquantifiable, and that some people will defend them is not an improvement.

Not necessarily. At least with errors and fielding percentage, fans know they don't attempt to tell you much. If they don't, they are corrected with little debate. The idea that statisticians are contriving stats so they can quantify the unquantifiable, and that some people will defend them is not an improvement.

Not only that, but it is a constant Winston Smith like revision of history. I'm coming to the conclusion that many who defend the new stats have no idea what alchemy is used to compile them, and defend the whole process in order to appear trendy and hip.

Not necessarily. At least with errors and fielding percentage, fans know they don't attempt to tell you much.

Well first, that's the definition of a pointless stat, but second, no, there are people who bring up errors and fielding percentage when discussing defense... Unfortunately, those are not universally derided stats.

Not only that, but is a constant Winston Smith like revision of history. I'm coming to the conclusion that many who defend the new stats have no idea what alchemy is used to compile them, and defend the whole process in order to appear trendy and hip.

No different than folks who completely disregard them without a second thought in some dim witted notion of preserving the purity of the game

Not only that, but is a constant Winston Smith like revision of history. I'm coming to the conclusion that many who defend the new stats have no idea what alchemy is used to compile them, and defend the whole process in order to appear trendy and hip.

Some stats are organic to the game. They don't necessarily tell you much, but they don't purport to. They are what they are.

I am more skeptical about newer fielding stats than I am about fielding percentage because fielding percentage is something I can see when I'm watching the game. I can see its limitations.

If you want to argue that Paul Konerko cost the White Sox x-number of games in a season, you don't take some contrived formulas that are not organic to the game and do the math. You find specific examples of games that were lost by his defense and balance them against games that were won by his defense.

If you want to argue that Paul Konerko cost the White Sox x-number of games in a season, you don't take some contrived formulas that are not organic to the game and do the math. You find specific examples of games that were lost by his defense and balance them against games that were won by his defense.

Not really. Players' defense contributes to the outcomes of games in ways other than errors at "critical points" of the game.

Quote:

The Winston Smith analogy was appropriate.

Not really. I don't see how anyone's "rewriting history", especially when in many cases the analytics movement has revived the fame and legacy of players who were revered in their time but "history" had forgotten.

PS: "revisionism" is a valid and valuable contribution to history as a discipline.

No different than folks who completely disregard them without a second thought in some dim witted notion of preserving the purity of the game

I have spent more time on saber stats than most devotees I'd venture to say, beginning with Total Baseball, a couple of decades ago. I'm not a Luddite who curses technology or the changes of life just for the hell of it. I'm alive today because of a one medical procedure that wasn't available until several decades ago, that allowed a highly technical surgery still being perfected to this day. I don't know what else I can say. Perhaps some day I'll meet a saber devotee and we can go over the history, the formulas used and have a civilized argument. I've tried here and for the most part failed. I am now just about totally out of love with saber.

If you want to argue that Paul Konerko cost the White Sox x-number of games in a season, you don't take some contrived formulas that are not organic to the game and do the math. You find specific examples of games that were lost by his defense and balance them against games that were won by his defense.

It is gratifying when someone puts into words an idea better than you have done. Thank you.

I have spent more time on saber stats than most devotees I'd venture to say, beginning with Total Baseball, a couple of decades ago. I'm not a Luddite who curses technology or the changes of life just for the hell of it. I'm alive today because of a one medical procedure that wasn't available until several decades ago, that allowed a highly technical surgery still being perfected to this day. I don't know what else I can say. Perhaps some day I'll meet a saber devotee and we can go over the history, the formulas used and have a civilized argument. I've tried here and for the most part failed. I am now just about totally out of love with saber.

Just going by your posting habits I have seen on this board, I would say you have shown a fair and open mind to a lot of the newer stats out there even if you are skeptical about their function and usefulness. So I hope you didn't think my post was directed at you personally, just the sect of baseball fans out there, for better or worse (mostly worse) who think that anything beyond batting average, home runs, and runs batted in needs some kind of master's level-degree in statistics and math and is done by geeks in their basement for the purposes of mental masturbation. It is what it is.